All together under one roof

The number of multigenerational families living together is on the rise

TARA DOOLEY, Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, May 10, 2009

Photo: SAUL LOEB, AFP | GETTY IMAGES

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Even the first family is in on the mulitigenerational-living arrangement trend. While President Barack Obama was campaigning, Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, fourth from left, cared for the couple’s daughters Sasha, left, and Malia. Robinson now lives in the White House. less

Even the first family is in on the mulitigenerational-living arrangement trend. While President Barack Obama was campaigning, Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, fourth from left, cared for the ... more

Don’t get her wrong. It’s lovely to come home to a home-cooked meal and freshly washed laundry.

But that was not the deal.

When her mom, Amanda Salazar, moved into the house to take care of 2½-year-old Abraham and 2-month-old Samuel, that was considered work enough.

She is supposed to leave the household chores to Salazar-Greene and her husband, Gregg Greene.

“You can’t take advantage, as much as I enjoy the occasional dinner or the occasional load of laundry,” said Salazar-Greene, who recently returned to her full-time job at Halliburton after Samuel’s birth.

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“I’m like, ‘Mom, you have to chill out because you are making me look bad,’” Salazar-Greene joked.

The problem might seem more a privilege to any parent who has ever returned from a long day at the office to a hungry family, a full laundry hamper and fussy children.

And Salazar-Greene feels privileged.

On Sundays, her mom leaves her home in Highlands and joins Salazar-Greene’s household in Richmond and returns home Fridays. That means Salazar-Greene has loving and reliable child care and children who benefit from a close relationship with their grandmother, she said.

Once upon a time, she might have felt like an old-fashioned woman out of step with the times because she was too attached to her mother. But in the 21st century, arrangements like the one Salazar-Greene shares with her mother are on the rise. With the arrival of the first mother-in-law in the White House, they have become, well, presidential.

The number of multigenerational households grew to 6.2 million in 2008 from about 5 million in 2000, according to an AARP study.

“There is no doubt that this is a trend that is on the rise,” said Rafael Ayuso, director of communication for AARP Texas in Austin.

The rise in housing costs earlier in the decade, recent economic troubles and immigration all play a part. Elderly parents also move in because they can no longer live alone. And adult children sometimes turn to their parents for habitation help after a divorce, Coontz said.

Increasingly, professional couples with children are willing to forgo a little bit of privacy to welcome Mom or Dad into the fold.

“It happens in two-parent families, certainly,” Coontz said.

“I don’t think it is ever going to become the norm or a mass phenomenon,” she added.

Just take the Obamas.

When the 2008 campaign hit high gear and the Obamas were on the trail, Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, was the one who kept life running smoothly back at home for the children, Malia and Sasha.

When the Obamas moved into the Pennsylvania Avenue address, Robinson went along as well.

The arrangement has many benefits, especially for a two-income family.

“Being a working mom is really difficult because you feel a lot of guilt,” said Elizabeth Mask, who lives with her two daughters, her husband and her mother in Cypress. “It is so nice to not have to take (the kids) someplace and leave them. And when they are sick, they can be comforted with someone they love.”

When Mask had her eldest daughter, Laura, now 2½, she dropped the girl off every day at her mother’s home.

But her mother was a widow and was living in a neighborhood that had experienced some crime. So Mask and her husband, Jerry, decided to move into a bigger house so Mask’s mother, Isabel Grimes, could live with them. Now Grimes cares for Laura and 7-month-old Julia.

“There is no one I would trust more with my kids other than me and my husband,” she said.

Multigenerational families were common in the 19th century, said Steven Mintz, a Columbia University history professor and national co-chairman of the Council on Contemporary Families.

“They were the safety net,” he said.

But in the 20th century, especially the 1950s and ’60s, the nuclear family was all the rage, said Mintz, author of Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood.

Think the Cleavers.

“That came to an end with the oil crisis of ’73-’74,” he said.

Appreciation of multigenerational ties also changed as the expectations of marriage and family have shifted.

In the 1800s, marriage was often a family or business arrangement, said Coontz, author of Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage.

The next century ushered in an expectation of romance and intimacy in marriage. With that, couples were told it was psychologically necessary to cut the “silver cord,” as it was called, between parents and children, she said. By the 1950s, it was downright old-fashioned to live with Mom or Dad.

But starting at least 20 years ago, families rediscovered the benefits of multigenerational ties. That has accelerated in the past 10 years, Coontz said.

In part, children no longer define themselves in opposition to their parents’ ideas and lifestyles, as was common in earlier generations. Now young adult children often share their parents’ values and consider their mothers and fathers friends rather than authority figures.

Also, as the average age of people getting married increased, adults spent more time outside a marriage and often sought family connections with their parents and siblings, Coontz said.

Despite the shared values, households of Grandma, Mom, Dad and kids are not without their challenges.

Both Salazar-Greene and Mask say discipline can be a touchy subject with grandmothers. In these families, it’s the moms who are more likely than the grandmothers to call for the timeouts.

Salazar-Greene also has had to make it clear that doling out more jelly beans than Mom allows is a grandparent’s right when she’s on her own turf. But in their house, Salazar-Greene and her husband set the rules, and everyone needs to follow them.

“The relationship, I think, the grandparents have is different. They’ve already sweated with their own children,” Salazar-Greene said. “The relationship they have with the grandchildren is pure and utter love.”

Open lines of communication can resolve the difficulties, Salazar-Greene and Mask said.

That and recognizing that raising happy children is what is important, Mask said.

“We are all working on the same goal, so it makes it easier,” she said.